7. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, by Chuck Klosterman

This book was on the Library's sale rack, and Owen told me it was good, so I took it. It is a book of essays (I do read nonfiction!) about pop culture, covering everything there is to cover, more or less.

It's one of those really opinionated essay compilations where you can find yourself calling the author a genius or an idiot depending on how much you happen to agree with whatever it is he's writing about, and I called him both during the course of reading his book. But agree with him or not, he is very funny.

I really enjoyed the ramblings on Billy Joel, The Real World, the Sims, etc. Other parts I found less hilarious, either because we disagreed- he seems to think soccer is the wussiest of sports and is only for nerds, which doesn't make sense to me at all, because (while it is probable that soccer players have a higher IQ than football or baseball players) they have always seemed like the coolest sport players there are. This might be because my concept of "cool" is perhaps different than the mainstream, but so is Chuck Klosterman's, so I don't know why we must disagree so strongly on this topic- or because I simply did not care enough about the topic he was covering to get it (NBA jokes, etc).

Anyway, so it was funny, but also sort of limited in scope, because it was published what, like 2003, and already some things are dated. He spends a large amount of time comparing Pamela Anderson to Marilyn Monroe, and I'm all "Well, sort of, maybe. But isn't Anna Nicole Smith a much better comparison, even pre-sad untimely death?" I guess it doesn't really matter to Chuck, as he prefaced the book with a page or two about time and truth and his initial worry that his book would stop being pertinent after a few years. He concluded (and I agree) that something can be true in the time that you are experiencing it. For a time, the truth of Pamela Anderson being the equivalent of Norma Jean made sense. And any kind of analyzation of pop culture has top be rooted in the moment, because that is what pop culture is all about. So for that, I enjoyed it.

And I also am jealous of people who can just pull out the perfect hilarious reference to a person/movie/character/phenomenon at the right time, and this book was full of that. I am someone who freezes up during Mad Libs, so people (C.L., you are someone who comes to mind as being particularly gifted in the snappy and appropriately funny reference area) whose brains know exactly where to reach in comparing one thing to another impress me. Really, Klosterman could have picked any doe-eyed sensitive apex-of-man icon to blame for the fact that no realistic love can last. But he the fact that picked the John Cusack (or the characters that J.C. embodies) is just perfect. Although it might currently be Edward Cullen or some shit, that is a good joke. Hell, I know I've wished John Cusack (or Lloyd Dobbler, more accurately) would materialize in front of me before.

Reading nonfiction is interesting and different, but he did that thing that David Sedaris does at the end of each essay where everything is wrapped up so perfectly in this bow tie sentence that makes you laugh and go "aww" at the same time. Sometimes my writing ends up like that, but a lot of times it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I wonder if it really worked out that beautifully in real life, or if the facts got twisted to make it end so perfectly. And that is one of my whole battles with nonfiction.


Sorry I'm so late, BTW. I had a bout of not caring about anything, and now that I am back I have like 4 books to write about.

Pages: 272
Time: Mar 8-11
Rating: 7.5